


unofficial quarantine procedures

by twofrontteethstillcrooked



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: First Kiss, Future Fic-ish, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:17:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6294748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofrontteethstillcrooked/pseuds/twofrontteethstillcrooked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>As far as Finn could conceive there was not one single way to, with any grace, extract oneself from the embrace of a friend who had not, in any way, invited you to be embraced. On a shabby freighter bunk. In the Vish system. With a mild infection. In the long midst of impending galactic catastrophe.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	unofficial quarantine procedures

**Author's Note:**

> Mega thanks and a whole yard of baby goats to the marvelous [clenster](http://archiveofourown.org/users/clenster/pseuds/clenster) for fantastic beta'ing and awesomeness.

In the great scheme of Finn's regrets, agreeing to a ship-procurement escapade -- Poe's description -- could've been worse. At present, however, Finn regretted with every compromised cell of his body having picked up that smuggler's baby yesterday. Conjeni babies were adorable: so many fluffy, spindly little limbs! And, like three-fourths of the infants Finn had ever encountered in the galaxy, Conjeni newborns were mewling factories of contagion.

From a single speck of salvia an onboard sample analyzer confirmed what he'd already guessed: he'd contracted what was commonly referred to as a cold, one of a dozen short-lived viral infections known to be a.) non-life threatening and b.) exceptional in their ability to make a host temporarily feel like a block of ice. For Finn, who'd grown up in the mostly sterile, if hostile, confines of First Order housing, this was proving to be an annoying new adventure.

The water spewing full blast from the refresher's jets seemed to be near boiling, and he could no longer hear his teeth chattering. Staying in the shallow tub forever seemed a viable choice, the consequences of which he envisioned with detachment. In due course his skin would rot and slough off down the drain. Putrefaction to follow. A disgusting and ignoble way to perish, but alternately he wouldn't have to suffer being cold. 

Finn didn't have the energy to contemplate this. He remained tucked in the corner with his eyes shut and willed the shattering cold to leave his bones. It didn't. He roused at some nominal point later at Poe's hand on his ankle.

An unanticipated upside to Finn's plan: the steam in the small room had made Poe's hair curl. Finn had the presence of mind not to laugh, because Poe was weird about his curls, but he grinned at Poe and Poe grinned at him. 

"Hey, glassy eyes." Poe's voice was quite fond yet Finn felt this new nickname warranted improving and frowned. Unfazed, Poe continued, "You gonna save any hot water for the rest of us?" He was crouching and somehow, instead of looking frazzled like an average person wearing old fatigues in a fog, seemed to glow with health.

"No," Finn said. "It's all mine." He laughed a little hiccup that made Poe stifle a laugh of his own. 

"Good thing we sprung for the most efficient grey recycler credits could buy." 

"Sorta forgot about that." Finn waved a wet hand around vaguely. "Sorry."

Poe reached up to turn off the streams and was dripped on for his trouble. Miniscule water dribs freckled his collarbone. "Reserve tanks are 97.34% full or something. BB-8 would've cut your supply eventually."

If Finn spoke slowly, his teeth wouldn't knock together. "What a pal, that BB-8." 

"BB-8 knows our mission stats start to suffer when crew members drown." Poe wiped his palms off on the knees of his trousers and cocked his head. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, since it's none of my business, but: you don't normally bathe fully dressed, right?"

Finn narrowed his eyes at him. "What if I do?"

"Nothing. No problem. We have laundry facilities on base which for the most part eliminate the need for that sort of thing, but whatever floats your boat."

"I hate being cold." Biting out each word made Finn feel like he was at least fighting back.

"I know," Poe said. "Wanna take a stab at standing?"

Finn didn't, particularly. Maybe Poe could let him dry out in the tub, like an umbrella. It would preclude him from having to stand up or undress, or stand up and undress. Seemed like work either way. Cold hard work. Stars, he was cold.

But he was not a helpless weakling. He'd endured being cold, in one form or another, many days of his existence. He was, in fact, a survivor of depressingly extensive disasters, including but not limited to enslavement, significant lightsaber wounding, and that bowl of flavorless lukewarm phraig eaten at breakfast. He would rise and reclaim his strength, he would cast off icy despair as he would his soggy garments, he would seize the rest of the day with vigor, determination, and a renewed spirit of insurrection.

"Easy, there," Poe said, springing up to put an arm around Finn's waist. 

"Whoever built this tub did not make it level," Finn said. "Can maintenance take care of that?"

"Maintenance is busy readjusting part of the hyperdrive," Poe said. 

He helped Finn step out of the tub onto the refresher tile floor, which was also slanted. The Resistance coffers for luxury were nonexistent, and trundle freighters were the opposite of luxury anyway, but bad engineering was bad engineering -- it spoke to poor detail orientation at best, unskilled labor at worst. Maybe he could fix it himself sometime when he wasn't wet and cold.

(Or he could get Rey to do it. Even better. Not like she was busy or anything.)

"You good to stay here for a sec?" Poe asked. 

"Of course," Finn said with great dignity. "Don't need to be coddled." He leaned against the wall by the sink and the faulty sonics, supposing the wall in this rocky refresher was sturdy enough to hold him.

Poe ducked out. "Did that sound like I was coddling you? Profound apologies," he said from the hallway. His sarcastic voice was Finn's favorite thing about him, after a long list of attributes he was not going to start thinking about at present. Poe came back in with a dry change of clothes and a towel slung over his arm. "Um," he said, a hesitant look on his face.

This was a look Finn had been confronted with more than once lately. It was roughly as disconcerting as the way the wall was drooping under Finn's bulk.

"I've got it, thanks," Finn said, shoving away from the wall and taking the dry clothes. 

Poe nodded. "I'll be right out here," he said, backing through the door and closing it behind him.

Finn removed his wet clothing and toweled off with the impersonal accuracy born of military instruction and a generous amount of brain washing. Sometimes the mental distance between what the First Order had tried to hardwire Finn to be and what Finn inherently was -- human, a mammalian species possessing opposable thumbs, indigenous to multiple planets, susceptible to lumpy porridge, errant germs, and slick tile -- smacked him at the most inopportune times, much the way the icy refresher floor did when he lost his balance. 

Finn checked himself, proud to his utter core he'd managed to not yelp; upon preliminary inspection his skeleton seemed to be fully intact. Major Kalonia would have no cause to lecture him, except about picking up random contaminated babies. He exited the refresher rubbing his hip.

Poe was in the second tier crew quarters unfolding a blanket. "Found an extra one in storage." He shook the blanket out and a cool breeze wafted towards Finn. 

Wanting to scream because of a cool breeze was probably an overreaction. Finn almost leapt to the ceiling when BB-8 spun out of a nearby cubby. He braced a hand on the closest trunk to feign a composed demeanor. 

BB-8's head twitched from side to side in an unimpressed manner. He whirred at Poe and retracted a thin disinfecting nozzle into a drawer, which pinged when shut.

"Thank you," Poe said to him. "Your space has been formally sanitized," he told Finn.

"Thanks, BB-8," Finn said. BB-8 bleeped goodbye and rolled out, burbling something at Poe.

"All right," Poe called in a put upon way. Finn could hear BB-8 making what sounded like blipping, clicking noises as the droid continued to another part of the freighter. 

Poe was digging under his own crew bunk with the kind of concentration he used on transparisteel canopy repairs and blasting TIEs out of the sky. "We're quarantining you for a few hours." He finally surfaced with a little bottle of something liquid.

"Just a few?"

"These cold viruses are remarkably fast. You should be fine tomorrow." Poe handed him the bottle. "Three squirts per nostril, and don't drink anything for half an hour."

Finn read the medicine's label: narco nasal-mist, patent pending, clear variant, quint-berry flavor. Yum?

"Okay," he said between sniffs, "but can I point out the obvious." Poe looked at him. "I mean, you're with me. Being breathed on," Finn said. 

"Ah," Poe said. "I guess we're both being quarantined." 

"Bastian doesn't mind?"

"He has BB-8 and Juzi at his disposal. Not like we can't step in in an emergency."

"We expecting an emergency?" The trip home to base was already taking longer than advertised.

Poe sat down on Finn's bunk. "No. But that's not usually how emergencies work." Watching Finn his unreadable expression had returned, perhaps intensified by his riotous hair. 

Finn wanted to put his hands in that hair with such piercing desire he considered pushing Poe off the bunk. He didn't, but only because he chose to say, "Your face."

Poe blinked. "What's wrong with my face?"

"Literally nothing," Finn muttered. 

"I--"

"You keep making this, I don't know, this face at me. Like you have something to say and you're choosing again and again not to."

Poe shook his head. "I don't know what I'm doing differently with my face." He said it with a perfect amount of confusion in his tone. 

Finn sat down. "Okay."

"Finn--"

"No, never mind." It was amazing how crookedly this freighter had been built. The whole room existed at some oddball gravity-defying angle. "Maybe the ship's inertial compensators are awry," Finn said.

"I think that's just you," Poe said. He wrapped the blanket around Finn's shoulders, afterwards scooting back until he was sitting against the bunk wall. He looked contented and warm.

Finn swung his feet up onto the bunk mattress. Wrapped in his blanket he'd arranged himself between Poe's legs before the realization fully surfaced: as it turned out, Poe had not-- 

Like-- 

He hadn't--

"Hello," Poe said, sounding...surprised, Finn thought. He sounded surprised because of the ambushing. 

Finn put his ear against Poe's chest half because it was right there, plus body heat, blissful glorious body heat, and half because embarrassment, maker-forsaken hideous appalling embarrassment. 

As far as Finn could conceive there was not one single way to, with any grace, extract oneself from the embrace of a friend who had not, in any way, invited you to be embraced. On a shabby freighter bunk. In the Vish system. With a mild infection. In the long midst of impending galactic catastrophe.

 _This_ , Finn thought with misery, was the most ignoble method of dying. 

In the next second realization number two struck: Poe was holding him. He'd tucked the blanket around Finn more tightly and his hands were on his shoulder blades. Finn was being held in the active sense of the verb. It was an ongoing state. 

Like he could hear Finn figuring this out, Poe said, "Not coddling you."

"Good," Finn said, trying hard to keep his voice mild. "That'd piss me off."

"Sensible reaction," Poe said. "I owe the universe some ret pay on colds."

"Yeah?"

"Had a lot of colds as a kid. Gave my parents fits."

"Doesn't Yavin 4 have a fairly steady climate?"

"Sure, but if your internal temp gage is wonky it doesn't matter how balmy it is in your backyard. My mother came home once and found me sleeping under every quilt in the house and wearing my dad's heaviest coat."

"Stylish."

"One tries to stay abreast of the latest trends."

Poe Dameron had doubtless never looked unfashionable a day in his life but Finn wouldn't be mentioning it. He rearranged the blanket and his limbs and wound up mostly with his back to Poe's chest. 

Poe's hands hovered for a suspended moment and came to rest near Finn's wrists. "How's your head feel?" 

"Meh." 

"Your teeth have stopped chattering."

"Yeah. It's super strange to be constantly aware of your own teeth." Finn could sense rather than see Poe's small smile. "Warmer also," he said to answer an unasked question.

"Good," Poe said.

Elsewhere on the freighter Bastian was using the comm to argue with Nien Nunb, parsecs away on another mission, about their recent game of Sullustian dice. Their tetchy echoes were accompanied by Juzi picking out something jaunty on her Hapan lute as she passed under the second tier. Finn had almost remembered the name of the tune when Poe spoke again.

"You're getting promoted, as soon as we're home." 

Finn sat up and twisted around to be able to look Poe in the eye. "Huh?" Smooth.

"Major. Effective four days from now, presuming no additional delays. But don't tell anyone, it's a secret." Poe had a remarkable planetary-poker face sometimes.

Finn exhaled. "Who else knows?"

"Everyone on board with us. General Organa, obviously. Admiral Ackbar. Rey. Luke. Snap. Pava. That guy, whatshisname? The one with the goiter?"

"Twenge?"

"Him. Maybe 10 to 20 others, give or take."

"So, everyone."

"Essentially." Poe kept a neutral expression for a moment, and broke into a wide grin. "Congratulations, by the way."

"Okay," Finn said, flummoxed but smiling. 

Poe's grin faded but he didn't look away. Finn felt caught by the gaze and couldn't picture what was on his own face.

With some difficulty he turned around and sat up on his knees. On a schlumpy mattress this provided less height than he would've liked, but being at eye level with Poe was helpful. 

"Okay," he repeated, feeling his way through an instinct he couldn't otherwise explain, "but this isn't. You haven't been." He shook his head. "That isn't why you haven't been talking to me."

Finn watched something shuttered creep into Poe's expression. Ah-ha. He wasn't imagining it.

"I'm talking to you right now." Poe had taken pains -- like, sharp shooting stabbing pains, Finn grasped -- to say those six words in a completely nonchalant tone of voice. 

"Poe," Finn said, "I truly do not like to be coddled."

Poe seemed to be weighing his options. As he spoke he drew his knees up and put his arms around them; Finn got the impression Poe was trying to keep from touching him. "Job's only going to be more dangerous from here on out."

Finn raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"And. You know what the Resistance is up against."

"Yes, I do. I know it better than almost anyone, and you know I know," Finn huffed, frustrated. "You think I should turn down the promotion? Or leave?" Poe's eyes widened a little. "I'll pack up my half a box of belongings, grab a meatlump, bid Rey and company a fond farewell, and hit the wide open road. Maybe hitch a transport on a return engagement to kriffing Jakku, land of enchantment. Ride out the apocalypse in a junkyard. Freedom from tyranny and terror would've been nice too, but whatever."

"Finn--"

"No, seriously, we're not discussing this. This is not a serious conversation." 

Finn couldn't tell if Poe was breathing. It would be inconvenient if Poe passed out.

"We need you to fight with us," Poe said, after what seemed like an unbearable minute. "You need to fight. And there is no you and us; you're Resistance too."

"Glad you've figured this out." The sensation that Finn had skidded into a not-quite-correctly-calibrated parallel world remained. He and Poe had argued before, though rarely over anything so dumb.

He looked at Poe. He swallowed. Poe's eyes were, stars, he didn't even know what.

Except, he did know. He absolutely knew.

"I'm sorry," Poe said. He unfolded his legs.

"Yes." 

An expression of practiced appeasement followed. "How're you feeling?"

Excellent parrying. Finn marveled. "Better," he said, inching closer.

"Great, great," Poe nodded, "you should be good as new by morning." His eyes never left Finn's face. "That narco mist's good stuff. The old kind we used to put in humidifiers was awful, smelled so strong it'd permeate the whole house. One time when I had a cold as a kid I hallucinated my bedroom was growing over with goblin moss, just green clumps and tendrils on all surfaces, suspended in the air--"

"Poe." Finn placed his hands carefully on either side of Poe's head. Poe's curls were soft against his palms.

"Hmm?" Poe had gone very still, eyes dark. 

"You should kiss me."

Poe exhaled a small laugh. "Yeah?"

"I mean, in case you had not heard, there's a war on. Plus, I've already infected you, you know this, it's inevitable. So you've got nothing to lose."

Poe swallowed. "Not certain of that." 

"You should be." Finn hoped the quietness with which he said it conveyed the truth of the statement. "Please, Poe."

Poe seemed to be having trouble not looking at Finn's mouth. His thumb was tracing the line from Finn's ear along his jaw. Finn, for his part, was having trouble not shivering. He slipped his hands along the nape of Poe's neck, threaded his fingers into his hair. 

Poe kissed his upper lip gently and kissed his lower lip gently. Each time he pulled back as if asking permission, and, finding it granted, returned with an increasing enthusiasm matched by Finn's. Despite his earlier fall Finn felt no pain -- he shifted until he was straddling Poe's lap and could properly kiss him back. 

Here was a superior new adventure, the thorough transition from something chaste to something unrestrained and utterly, inextricably essential. Finn took a second to kick his former self for not figuring Poe out sooner. He forgave both of them after a few more minutes. 

Poe's mouth was hot, addictive; his hands were beneath Finn's shirt, fingertips stroking down his spine as if to memorize him. "Any lingering cold?" he asked, with Finn's mouth on his throat.

"Maybe," Finn said, knowing Poe would accept the challenge.


End file.
